Replace the default search engine in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome

One day I opened Google search as usual and suddenly I realized the shit I get when I hit enter to search the Internet. Just look at it. These are all sponsored results. Basically just ads. The results “someone paid to show me”. Conversely, I will pay in marketing spend once I buy the product or service:

Just a random Google search for the best 2025 OLED monitors

There must be a better way! And thanks to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), there is! SearXNG is a free Internet metasearch engine that can be self-hosted and aggregates results from various search services such as Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Seznam, Qwant, etc. Using metasearch is like self-hosted search aggregation where users are not tracked or profiled and you get rid of ads as a bonus.

I decided to give SearXNG a try because: “No tracking. No ads. Search like it used to be.” sounds just right. With some help from SearXNG Docs I got my instance up and running. And at first glance, it is better. Much better! Just look at it:

Just a random SearXNG search for the best 2025 OLED monitors

Only relevant results. No ads. Multiple search engine results. Suggestions for phrase optimization and even Reddit community results on the first page. Incredible! The decision is made. I am migrating to SearXNG on my own instance as the default search on all my devices. But how do I replace default search engine in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome?

Replace the default search engine in Mozilla Firefox

This is quite easy. Just follow the official Mozilla support page. In short to add a search engine that supports OpenSearch from the address bar:

1. Navigate to your SearXNG instance URL or just select one from the SearXNG public instances list
2. Select Add [Your SearXNG Instance Name] option from the context menu
3. Navigate to about:preferences#search
4. Set your Default Search Engine to the newly created entry in the list

Replace the default search engine in Google Chrome

Google makes it quite tricky to find exactly where you should configure a custom search engine. This is not too surprising. As search Google Chrome and search is Google’s main interest. But it can be done:

1. In Google Chrome navigate to chrome://settings/searchEngines
2. Leave the Keyboard shortcut as it is
3. Click Add under Site search
4. Give your new search provider a Name like SearXNG
5. For Shortcut try something like @searxng
6. Fill in URL with %s in place of query with https://search.example.com/search?q=%s replacing the search.example.com with your SearXNG instance
7. Click Add once the fields are complete
8. Make this new Site search provider your Chrome default by selecting the 3 dot menu beside the SearXNG entry, selecting Make default.

Replace the default search engine in Google Chrome

Now when you type a search query in the Google Chrome address bar, your search will be routed through your SearXNG instance. Happy searching!